Because it discusses demography and migration as potential threats to liberal societies, and something called “biocultural continuity”! The horror! It sounds almost… conservative! Someone please protect the students!
If you ask me, one of the main dangers facing liberalism is precisely that (some) liberals want to shut down debate about the threats it faces. So what else could we do? Bouke invited me to join efforts and write a paper in reply, which critically evaluates and challenges Anomaly & Faria’s argument. It has now been accepted for publication.
So can liberalism survive itself? Anomaly and Faria fear it may not, pointing to low birth rates, cultural fragmentation, mass migration from illiberal cultures, and liberalism’s self-imposed constraints. In our paper, we’re more hopeful. Open societies adapt faster; people defect and switch ideologies when facades crack; technology gives them an edge; and authoritarian regimes have demographic problems of their own. Liberalism ain’t finished yet.
This was a somewhat adversarial collaboration, which are often the most interesting. Bouke is more pessimistic and tends to think that demography (largely) determines our destiny, whereas I take a more sanguine view of the robustness of liberal democracy and focus more on cultural transmission—which can undermine demographic advantages through the horizontal transmission of ideas and ideological defection. Liberalism is inherently attractive, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
To be published soon—and banned in a classroom near you!
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